The "Christian Union."
By J. E. W.
IN the San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 9, is a statement that J. B. Ford & Co., publishers of the Christian Union, have failed, "which will undoubtedly carry with it the Beecherian enterprise of the Christian Union." Beside the Union, Ford & Co. had invested heavily in the books written by the Beecher family. "The revelations of the internal management of the Christian Union will serve to instruct the outside world as to the peculiar manner in which theological journalism is carried on. The actual capital of the Union consists of Henry Ward Beecher's name, and a press seemingly not paid for, worth $50,000 cash, contributed by Henry W. Sage. The nominal paid up capital is returned as $159,000, divided into shares of $1000 each. Of these shares Beecher holds fifty, Ford & Co. twenty-seven, and the balance is scattered among press builders, paper makers, and other newspaper dependents." The enterprise promised to be profitable, as the paper had an edition of 120,000; but during the week that the Plymouth pastor was on the witness stand the press was secretly watched, and it was discovered that the circulation was reduced to 40,000 copies. Since that time it has gradually decreased. This, with the fact that Beecher's writings no longer sell, is a "significant comment upon public opinion."
J. E. W.